William Price - Board
What is your experiences within Intersect and Cardano?
I've been in the Cardano ecosystem since 2021. In that time, I with multiple Cardano native projects as an Ambassador, specifically working in media relations. In this role, I would interact with journalists, blog writers, and media personalities.
I've been cited via Fox Business, Kiplinger's Personal Finance, along with other non-industry media outlets.
Outside of Cardano and Intersect, I have four years of experience as a National Non-profit Director. In this role, I was responsible for reviewing and approving Board minutes, address membership concerns, mitigate organizational risks both in the media and internally, approve budgets, oversee National Conferences, be the organization's Ambassador to elected officials, government agencies (and their representatives), and other stakeholders.
Do you have any other Cardano affiliations or possible conflicts of interests, including you as an individual or an enterprise you are associated with?
No
What do you think the MBO’s primary strategic goals and objectives are or should be for the next 3-5 years?
Champion and onboard new and existing ADA holders into the Cardano Governance system.
Advocacy of Cardano, as an open-source, decentralized protocol, to stakeholders outside of the industry. This includes participating with policy-makers that we may not "like" or "politically support".
Become the ecosystem leader in advocating developmental roadmaps, encouraging new strategic partnerships with non-industry participants, and continue development to make building on Cardano easy and efficient.
Can you describe the current composition of the Board and the skills and experience gaps that the organization is looking to fill?
The current composition of the Board consists of representatives of Wyoming University as the Educational Chair. Two Seed Funder seats with Emurgo and IOG, The Secretary from Intersect.
I believe that the organization has great business, educational, and technical participants. I do believe that we lack in the advocacy, non-technical growth, and mainstream partnership development.
What are the key challenges and opportunities the MBO is currently facing?
I believe the key opportunity for Intersect is mainstream advocacy and a member based media strategy.
Right now, Charles Hoskinson is the main spokesperson for the Cardano ecosystem. While Charles, IOHK, Emurgo, and the Cardano Foundation are important in their roles... none of those participants are coming from the perspective of the participants of the ecosystem.
Furthermore, I believe it's easier to attack an individual than it is a group. Meaning, Charles is incredibly polarizing. I think that as the Chief Advocate for Cardano, it makes it incr
edibly easy to attack his character on things that have nothing to do with our ecosystem. When Intersect, or any MBO, speaks... It's not William Price, or any other single Board Member, speaking. It's the organization, through the Board. That protection is vital.
Member Based Organizations work because we have the opportunity to group our collective voice to address issues with policy-makers, companies, and other stakeholders.
How does the MBO measure success and performance, both at the Board level and operationally?
Key Performance Indicators (KPI's) are the primary driver to determine success and performance for goals and objectives. It's vital that as KPI's are shared with membership stakeholders and specific actions that are taken to inspire confidence that we're not just participating in lip service.
I also believe in the 360 evaluation process. The Board's job is to ensure that the Executive Team is following the Core Values and Strategic Vision laid out by The Board. The Executive Teams job is to ensure that The Board is offering the tools to the Executive Team to ensure that they can complete their job.
What do you think is the relationship between the Board and the Executive team?
The BoD is a governing body of the organization. Our key responsibilities are to set strategy, oversee management, and protect the interests of members and stakeholders.
The Executive Team's job is to do the day to day business of the organization.
What are the key expectations for the Non-Executive Director (NED) role in terms of time commitment, specific responsibilities, and contributions to Board meetings and committees?
The key time requirements for a NED should be not more than 40 hours per month, in most instances... Or around 300 hours a year. Board Members are generally not full-time positions. Unless there is a crisis that requires The Board to have more of an active agenda, the Executive Team runs most day to day business.
In fact, it becomes a hinderance to the organization for a Board Member to run a full-time schedule. Board Members that work a full-time schedule tend to overstep their boundaries and interfere with day to day operations. A NED is not a micromanager, they are not a manager. Their job is to develop strategic guidance, independent oversight, financial stewardship, participation in Board Meetings, mitigate risk to the organization as a whole, and engage with Members and other Stakeholders as an outside entity to the Executive Team.
In short, a NED is an independent expert that sees issues from outside the day to day operations and brings them to the Board, as a whole, to discuss and address as determined by the whole.
What/who do you think are the MBO’s key relationships with external stakeholders, and how does the Board engage with these stakeholders?
The MBO's key external relationships are IOHK and Emurgo. The boards primary role is an advocacy role speaking with the authority given by the membership.
We also work with DRep, SPO's, web3 businesses, and our own membership to ensure that we understand the needs of the ecosystem as a whole. This way we, as an organization, can develop strategies to ensure that we use governance to build roadmaps and develop initiatives that make those stakeholders have a better experience within our organization AND within the ecosystem in large.
What do you think is the MBO’s approach to risk management, and what are the top risks that the Board should be aware of?
MBO's have three primary roles in Risk Management:
Ensure the Executive Staff is not only adopting a risk management process, but also ensure that the process outlined is functionally delivering.
Review periodic reports of the most significant risks to the organization, discuss and make decisions on the MOST important threats and opportunities. Generally, this should be done through a process known as a Risk Register. Intersect day to day operations should be keeping a risk register that identifies all the risks that can be identified. Furthermore, they should analyze the likelihood and consequences of each risk occurring. Executive leadership should be taking the bulk of risk mitigation.
Board Members are stewards of the Organization. The Board should be the example of compliance, ethics, and responsibility and live the organization's values. They should also set the tone on how much staff should be taking on in risk to pursue the organization objectives. This is risk appetite, which falls within the strategic planning of The BoD.
In my opinion, the top risk for the Board is to battle perception of favortism or being too heavy handed in setting the strategic mission. We are a membership based organization, so ensuring that general participants do not view Intersect as just another IOHK, Emurgo, or Foundation shill or surrogate. At the same time, we should foster opportunities for participant members to grow and feel comfortable bringing real challenges to the ecosystem in large. I believe that this is accomplished by being transparent, and living our core values with our stakeholders. Furthermore, fostering an environment of two way communication from the Membership to the Board, who then discusses and takes the most important issues to the Executive team with a strategic vision to execute.. then follow up with the ET and periodically communicate with Membership the direction that the MBO is taking to mitigate unnecessary risk.
How should the MBO support Board members in their roles, including providing information, training, and resources?
The MBO Executive Team/Board relationship is vital. The Board has to trust, but periodically verify, that the Executive Team is executing the strategic vision that The Board has laid out.
The Executive Team needs to feel confident that when they need to address issues that they can bring them to The Board to discuss and make a decision in the best interests of the Organization as a whole. Finally, Membership has to feel confident that if they communicate with The Board that, at a minimum, they are heard AND feedback on results when a decision is made.
The Board also needs access to community and organizational experts to gather additional information when their are gaps in knowledge. Committees are the experts on specific topics that fall within The Board's business. I believe the most important resource the Board can be given is the ability to gather a 360 evaluation process. The Executive Team needs to be able to evaluate the Board and vice versa.
The Board also needs to be able to complete Self-Evaluation to address possible opportunities for improvement or to find things that are working well and need to have more energy directed to in order to make them more valuable.
Ongoing Board Trainings in areas of Nonprofit Governance, Finances, Strategic Planning, Meetings rules and procedures, Risk and liability identification and mitigation, and Communication for NEDs that don't have a lot of Board experience is paramount, in my opinion.
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